


(Smells Like The Devil's) Let Us

by likelike_love



Category: In Plain Sight
Genre: Let's Get It Ahn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-19
Updated: 2012-08-19
Packaged: 2017-11-12 11:48:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/490579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likelike_love/pseuds/likelike_love
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU end-cap of Let's Get It Ahn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(Smells Like The Devil's) Let Us

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2nd Annual Month of Mayhem event on mary_marshall.livejournal.com. Many thanks to papillongirl.
> 
> [Originally posted](http://mary-marshall.livejournal.com/545549.html) on mary_marshall.livejournal.com on April 24, 2011.

"... I hope you know that I love you..."

A thrumming in her ears drowned the rest his words before they reached her. Mary's eyes narrowed, sharpened focus. Adrenalin surged. Her heart pounded. She surveyed Marshall, quickly searching out the bullet hole, some jagged gaping gash, a mortal wound. 

He said I love you; he must be dying. 

With the absence of physical evidence - no entrance wound, no telltale bloom of red - her brain clicked, spun. 

Not him... is it me? 

She crossed her arms tight and low across her abdomen, bending almost imperceptibly at the waist. Imagining harakiri, holding her insides in...

When Marshall raised his head, the Get Well Soon balloon swayed in the breeze she had created as she ran through the the double doors, bypassing the elevator in favor of the concrete stairwell.

* * *

“Mary?!” He pounded on the door again, heart rate climbing still higher since turning onto Mary street and seeing the Probe parked with the front wheels in the flower bed.

When she didn’t answer he fumbled for his keys. “Mary!” He finally managed the lock and crossed the living room in six strides, making his way through the house, eyes wild.

He found her in the bedroom, tearing clothes from their hangers and shoving them into the open suitcase on the bed.

“Mary?”

She gave no sign that she had noticed him enter.

“Where are you going?” 

Her hand stilled on the knob of the dresser. Marshall saw her shoulders slump.

“Please, Marshall. Just. Go.” Her fingers hovered over the contents of her underwear drawer.

“I think we need to talk. Tell me what’s going on.”

She threw a heap of underwear in the general direction of the suitcase.

When he took a step toward her, she raised a hand. “Don’t come any closer.”

“Okay. Okay.” He leaned heavily on the doorframe. “But you have to tell me what’s going on here.”

“I have to ... I have to go.”

“Where?”

She swiped the back of her hand across her forehead. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

“Okay, you don't know where. Can you tell me why?” He kept his voice low to cover his panic.

She looked up at him. "Because no matter what I do, no matter how I try, I will always end up hurting you." The corner of her mouth quirked up.

Marshall stepped forward.

"Stop. Don't come any closer."

He didn't hesitate. "It's too late. You already let me in."

She shuddered as he reached for her hand and drew her closer to the bed to sit down.

"Mary, if you're trying not to hurt me, don't leave. Don't leave."

"You'd be better off without me."

"Never."

"Look! Look at my life!" She blustered, gesturing at the insulation tumbling through the holes in the drywall, the ceiling fan dangling above them at a precarious angle. "This is what happens to everyone and everything in my path. And you. I don't want this for you. I'd do anything to keep you safe from..."

"You don't need to protect me from anything, not even you."

She snorted. "Everything I touch turns to a flaming pile-"

"You wanna touch me?" He raised his eyebrows and she laughed.

"You doofus."

"Mary, I love you."

She drew a breath. It felt like inhaling a million splinters of glass deep inside her lungs.

"I love you," he repeated.

"Stop! Just. Stop."

"It's not your choice, Mary. Hell, it's not even mine! It's completely out of my control, -your control. And I know that terrifies you."

"I ... I can't do this."

"Why?"

"Stop it."

" _You_ stop it! Mary-"

"I'm asking you to let this be. I'm going to be with Raph to -- I'm letting you walk away from this. I can't ... I can't keep hurting you."

"I know you love me too."

"Don't flatter-" The words slipped out by reflex.

"Mary, you're so much in your own head that you've traced out the imaginary course of our relationship to some sort of eventual fiery crash and burn-"

"It will!"

"-that you won't even allow for the possibility of us." He laid a hand on her knee. "Mary, just come back. Come back from whatever apocalyptic vision you've created in your head and just be here. Now. With me."

"I can't let-"

He laughed. "Let?! You know what? You don't control everything, Mary. You can't. I know you want to. You're holding on so tight that you don't have any fingernails left." He lifted her hand a moment before settling it in his lap. "Stop trying to protect, or avoid .... stop trying to _manage_. Just let life happen. Let go. Let's _be_."

She let out a groan. "Have we met?"

He laughed again. "We have. I _know_ you."

"Then you know I can't do this."

"I know you can do anything. I think you're terrified that putting a name to this will make it real. But Mary, this is real. It already exists. This _is_ real. You and me. Just let us _be_."

"Be the river?" 

He smiled. "Something like that."

"I'm so tired, Marshall. Can we be the river tomorrow?"

He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "And every day after that."


End file.
